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Fire and Storytelling

There’s something about fire and storytelling.  Perhaps it’s something primal, stretching back into the shadows of pre-history, literally tens of thousands of years, when hunter/gatherer societies met around a fire at the end of the day, successfully having hunted, successfully having gathered, and unfold the story of what happened to them over the last few hours.  It was around the fire that myths and legends developed, it was how stories found form and content, practiced again and again.  In the days before writing, arriving at the fire meant we were not only going to receive food and warmth, but we were going to learn about each other and the strange world around us.  What a different time it must have been then.  No medicine, no science, no explanation for the millions of visible lights in the night sky, nor the large white-gray sphere that arced through that night, waxing and waning, nor the bright ball of fire, seemingly smaller than the other sphere, but clearly fiercer, hotter, stronger.  It’s little wonder that one of the first sciences to develop was a mix of astronomy and astrology.  Everything we learned brought back to the wood fireplaces and shared with others.

You can see the remnants of this connection between fires and stories today, in a number of different places:   In Yosemite National Park, people meet for an evening of telling stories by the fireside inside The Ahwahnee Great Lounge, at a magnificent fireplace.  Meant for young and old alike, people tell stories about the people of Yosemite,  its places and history.  There’s a group in Ireland with a group that references telling stories around the fire, and many, many other groups.  Even in these times, you’ll still find mention of the fire associated with the storyteller.  I noted one article on the world wide web titled, “Spinning Yarns Around the Digital Fire.”  This pairing between flames and stories seems inextricable now, it’s so ingrained in our world.  Now that I’ve called your attention to it, you’ll probably start to see it, too; certainly, we’ll all think about it the next time we’re standing around a fireplace.

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Tags: telling stories around the fire, wood fireplaces, Yosemite National Park

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